Park golf (パークゴルフ), a form of golf played in a park, was invented in Makubetsu, Hokkaidō, Japan in 1983. Esthetically, it resembles a sport somewhere between golf and croquet. The competitive object of the game is to hit the ball into a hole with a club in the fewest number of strokes. At the same time, there is also a strong emphasis on harmony with other players (players of park golf are referred to as parkers) and the natural setting of the course.

The founders of the sport wanted to keep it simple so that people of all ages could become parkers easily. A single ball and club are sufficient for a game of park golf. Courses are relatively short and the physical strain of the game is low. The cost of playing is also low and the rules are simple. For this reason, it is a good sport for children and families. Despite this, the majority of the 700,000 parkers continue to be of retirement age.

A "round" of park golf is 9 holes.

The International Park Golf Association has set upper limits on the length of park golf holes and courses. The maximum length for an individual hole is 100 meters. A 9-hole course is limited to 500 meters or less. Because there is no lower limit, courses can be found in small corners of parks or in the fringe around parking lots.

A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by law.

Wilderness parks are intact and undeveloped areas used mainly by wild species. Protected wilderness zones are required for some wild species to survive. Some protected parks focus mainly on the survival of a few threatened species, such as gorillas or chimpanzees.

The first parks were deer parks, land set aside for hunting by royalty and the aristocracy in medieval times. They had walls or thick hedges around them to keep game in and people out.

These game preserves evolved into landscaped parks set around mansions and country houses from the sixteenth century onwards. These may have served as hunting grounds but they also proclaimed the owner's wealth and status. An aesthetic of landscape design began in these stately home parks where the natural landscape was enhanced by landscape architects such as Capability Brown. As cities became crowded, the private hunting grounds became places for the public.

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players (or golfers) use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes.

It is one of the few ball games that does not require a standardized playing area. Instead, the game is played on golf "courses", each of which features a unique design, although courses typically consist of either nine or 18 holes. Golf is defined, in the rules of golf, as "playing a ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes in accordance with the Rules."

Golf competition is generally played for the lowest number of strokes by an individual, known simply as stroke play, or the lowest score on the most individual holes during a complete round by an individual or team, known as match play.

Inbee Park, also known as In-Bee Park, (Korean: 박인비, born 12 July 1988) is a South Korean professional golfer.

Park was born in Seoul. She began playing golf at the age of 10. After moving to the United States, she won nine events on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit and was a five-time Rolex Junior All-American. She was a semifinalist at the 2003 U.S. Women's Amateur. She won the 2002 U.S. Girls' Junior and finished as runner-up in both 2003 and 2005.

While an amateur from 2004 through 2006, Park played in the Kraft Nabisco Championship as a sponsor invite and in the LPGA Takefuji Classic three times, recording two top-10 finishes.

In 2007, Park changed the English spelling of her name from In-Bee to Inbee.

In 2006, after graduating from Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, Park appealed to the LPGA for permission to attempt to qualify for the LPGA as a 17-year old. LPGA rules generally require that a player be 18 to join the Tour. The LPGA denied Park's request, so she enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas but soon after dropped out and turned professional, playing on the Duramed Futures Tour where the age of entry had recently been lowered to 17.

Stacy Lewis (born February 16, 1985) is an American professional golfer on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour.

Born in Ohio, Lewis grew up in Texas at The Woodlands outside of Houston, and graduated from The Woodlands High School in 2003. Suffering from scoliosis, which was diagnosed at age 11 and treated by a spinal fusion when she was in high school, Lewis missed her first collegiate golf season recovering from the surgery.

Lewis was a decorated amateur and a four-time All-American at the University of Arkansas. She redshirted her first year while recovering from her back surgery. As a redshirt freshman in 2005, she won the Southeastern Conference Tournament and was named SEC Freshman Golfer of the Year. In 2006, she won the Women's Western Amateur.

In her 2007 season, though a back injury kept her out of the SEC Tournament, Lewis won the NCAA Division I Championship and was selected Golf Digest Amateur of the Year. She also received the National Golf Coaches Association Dinah Shore Trophy. Following the college season, she won the 92nd Women's Southern Amateur and finished second in individual play in leading the U.S. team to a victory at the Copa de las Americas.